


The Soul's Settling

by Whitefox



Category: Justified
Genre: Books, Fluff, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Kids, M/M, Post-6x13, Post-Series, Reluctant Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-28 17:44:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3863953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whitefox/pseuds/Whitefox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>They’d torn each other up bad, trying to get free.  It’s only right they watch over the ragged pieces that are left.</i>  </p><p>Boyd & Raylan & Ava and the ways they come together, post-finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Soul's Settling

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be slash but didn't quite make it, hence the confused tags. Still, the intention is there!
> 
> Follows immediately after the finale. I needed even more fluff, I guess. <3

 

 

Raylan cannot quite articulate what prompts him to return to Tramble Penitentiary.  He certainly doesn’t miss the man.  He went four years in Miami without missing Boyd Crowder to any significance, and he’s sure he could have gone a lot longer had circumstances allowed for it.  He’s not acting out any sort of misplaced sense of guilt or responsibility, either.  He was more than justified in all he did to Boyd - for all that the lines do tend to blur in Harlan, of that much he is certain.

And it’s dangerous, visiting Boyd.  Raylan knows that.  He knows that any mention of Ava by either of them runs the risk of revealing his lie, that any mention of his own daughter and how much he loves her, _lives_ for her, could put her at risk in the unlikely event that Boyd ever achieves his freedom once again.  In fact, there is no discernible benefit whatsoever that would balance out those concerns and justify his driving the thousand or so miles down from Miami to see Boyd face-to-face a second time. 

And yet, there remain a couple particular points of their last conversation that just don’t sit well with him.  He tries to brush it off, reminds himself that Boyd’s preaching again, which is doubtless good for his soul or some shit.  Boyd’s served lengthy prison sentences before, it’s not like he doesn’t know how to adapt, how to survive it.  He’ll be fine.

Generally, in the daylight hours, he believes all of this.  It’s in the moments before he falls asleep at night that Boyd’s face will flash through his mind and he’ll hear the utter hopelessness in Boyd’s voice when he mused that maybe Ava’s death was for the best, that none of them could ever hope to escape Harlan’s shadow.  He’ll see the pain and resignation in Boyd’s eyes when Raylan started to leave, when he realized that this was likely the last time they’d see each other and that even this unexpected repeal was almost over.

He thinks, just maybe, that Boyd shouldn’t be left alone for the next little while. 

As there’s no one else left alive with the ability or inclination to fill such a position, the duty (if there’s even call for one) falls to Raylan.  It’s not that he feels any obligation to Boyd, not exactly – all the shit they showered upon each other all these years, it’d be stupid to still feel responsible – but more that when he tries to imagine a world where Boyd dies in prison in a faraway county, the hows and whys forever unknown…well, it just don’t sit right with him, is all.

It would just be one more visit, just to check in.  It’s not so big a deal.

To Raylan’s disappointment, the guards at the Tramble Penitentiary do not seem to share this point of view.  He gets more than what he feels is his fair share of suspicious glances when he turns up on official visiting day, which is just unnecessary seeing as how he has been personally responsible for Boyd Crowder’s incarceration on two separate occasions now.  It seems there will never come a time when there’s not someone out there who thinks he and Boyd are colluding in some manner, but he finds he no longer cares enough to try to change their minds.  Prison duty seems dull and grey and depressing; he can at least let them have their petty conspiracy theories.

He reconsiders this stance when the guards try to linger in the dingy green visiting room after they lead Boyd in, but the way Boyd starts smiling like his whole world’s lightened up the moment he claps eyes on Raylan and can’t seem to stop pretty much makes up for it.

Raylan sees no reason not to smile back, not anymore. 

“Well now, Raylan Givens, as I live and breathe.  I cannot recall anyone else whose unfortunate demise would necessitate a personal visit, so I am forced to conclude this is a bona fide social call.  Am I correct in that assessment, Raylan?”

That is far too direct a question for Raylan to answer, and he’s sure Boyd knows it.  “They got books in here?” he asks instead.

“If by that you mean writings other than the works of our Lord, well a pious man such as myself can hardly complain.  There are not enough hours in the day to devote to studying the Holy Book with the rigour it rightly deserves.”

“Nevertheless,” Raylan says, only half-listening to Boyd’s response the way a prospector would sift through dirt, watching for nuggets of truth amid the bullshit.  He tosses a battered paperback copy of _The Catcher in the Rye_ onto the scratchy stainless steel table.  He’d had it lying around, wanting to get rid of it but knowing it was too battered to interest a bookseller, and he’ll be damned if he’ll start throwing away books now when he never has before in his life.  It’d been a process getting it through security, but he’s got enough bad habits to prune off as is without collecting new ones like book burning.

Boyd has to fumble to catch the book with his cuffed hands, but he manages.  His smile dims as he looks at the cover, but the look in his wide eyes is startled, nearly awe-struck. 

“I suppose Holden and I do have some catching up to do,” he says eventually, voice nearly whisper-quiet.  Of all Boyd’s various moods and methods of expressing them, this is the one Raylan distrusts the least.  “Thank you, my friend.”

Raylan shrugs, feeling a mite uncomfortable with the weight of the reaction he’d received.  He’d expected Boyd to laugh it off, maybe even see through Raylan’s attempt to use him as garbage disposal.  Instead this visit is playing out far too similarly to the last, with Boyd open and raw and worryingly glad to see him.  Something’s not right.

“How’s the preaching?” Raylan tries, for lack of anything else worth inquiring about.  He considers and discards a variety of elaborations referencing the fate and purpose of Boyd’s first flock which, no matter how tempting they may be, feel weirdly mean-spirited in this strange, open atmosphere.  In the end he says nothing more and tries to hide how he’s biting his tongue.

Boyd can tell anyway, of course, and seems to appreciate the unusual display of tact because his smile goes all small and gentle with a minimum of teeth.  “These are hard men, Raylan.  Turning them to the light is a gradual but rewarding process that I am privileged to have a hand in.  If tales of my trials and tribulations cause any one of them to reflect on the course of his life and reconsider the direction he is heading, then I can take some small comfort that my misfortunes were to a purpose.”

“Well you do have a captive audience in here.  Force a man into a room with you regular enough, I’m sure there’s not many wouldn’t change their tune.”

Boyd’s grin widens to a vaguely threatening degree.  “That include yourself, Raylan?”

Raylan offers his most charming smile in response.  “Boyd, I do not doubt that you could convince a man to eat horseshit if you had half a mind to, but that man would not be me.”

Boyd barks a laugh, so loud and with such abandon that Raylan’s surprised the guards don’t barge in to put a stop to the fun that’s clearly being had.  Boyd’s laughter dies out as fast as it had flared up, but he’s still smiling like the most untrustworthy son of a bitch Raylan ever did see as he scrapes his chair close and hunches low over the table.  Raylan eyes the encroaching hands warily, but doesn’t move out of range. 

“You’ll have to forgive me,” Boyd murmurs, low like he’s imparting some grave secret.  “It has occurred to me that in my preoccupation with my own circumstances I have been an unworthy friend.  Your last visit was so full of me and my affairs that I never got a chance to inquire as to the well-being of your family.  How is dear Winona these days, Raylan?  And your daughter, why she must be starting grade school soon!”

Raylan feels the smile slip off his face completely for possibly the first time since he’s stepped foot in the visiting room.  His jaw works in silence for a long moment before he speaks.  “Winona’s fine.  She gets along well in the sun.  Dating a lawyer.”

Boyd adopts a look of grave commiseration that Raylan can tell right away is about ninety percent bullshit.  “Well I am sorry to hear you two didn’t work out.  My condolences.”

Raylan shrugs.  “Was about as predictable as the moonrise, in retrospect.  We should’a known better than to try.”

"That is a fault we share, then.  I may cast no stones.  And your daughter…?”

Raylan works his jaw some more.  He can see the pleading in Boyd’s eyes, his earnestness practically oozing out in tangible form, but he can’t bring himself to speak of his daughter, not in such a place.  He wants her to have nothing to do with this world of liars and murderers and life-long sentences stretching from cradle to grave, wants her kept as separate from Boyd and his ilk as fire from ice.  He knows it would change nothing, given that Boyd already knows she exists, but invoking her name within these walls feels too much like a dare.

Boyd’s fingers reach like spiders’ legs across the table to tap the back of Raylan’s hand so softly he would have missed it if he hadn’t been watching.  “Raylan, please.  Won’t you even tell me her name?”

The sense that something’s badly wrong with Boyd has returned.  There’s a wound, raw and festering, just under his skin.  Maybe it opened when he heard of Ava’s death, maybe sometime before, Raylan doesn’t know but he can see it gaping wide behind Boyd’s too-honest eyes.  He’s not sure if he can help, but he knows this is his chance to try.  If he cares to take it.

Neither of them speak for a long moment.  Eventually, Boyd’s hands slink back across the table.

“I apologize, Raylan.”  Boyd’s voice is low, his eyes focused on his own hands curled tight around the book beneath his chin.  He seems small suddenly, like the presence that usually fills rooms has twisted in on itself and become a vacuum.  “I should not have—”

“She’s a reader,” Raylan blurts.  “Only one who already knew the alphabet in her preschool class.  Never had much patience for picture books, was coming up with her own stories ‘fore she could walk straight.  Won’t be much longer ‘til her reading material weighs more than she does, she keeps on like she is.”

Slow, like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing, Boyd starts to smile.  “Just like her daddy,” he murmurs.

“And with any luck, that is where the similarities end,” Raylan huffs.  He pushes off from the table and makes to stand up.  He’s given all the ground he’s willing to today.  “Now Boyd, it has been a pleasure, as always.  But I believe my time is nearly up.”

“Raylan,” Boyd calls, hands twitching like he wants to make a grab for Raylan but doesn’t quite dare.  “Raylan.  Hold a moment.”

About at the end of his patience, Raylan pauses halfway out of his seat.  “Spit it out, Boyd.”

“I don’t suppose…”  Boyd stalls out, and Raylan raises his eyebrows in what he hopes is encouragement but is probably more like frustrated impatience.  “Well I don’t mean to presume anything here Raylan, but well, if you had it in your mind to perhaps return sometime…well I’d surely appreciate the company.  And perhaps I might trouble you for some additional reading material, if the acquiring of such does not take you too much out of your way?”

Raylan rubs at the bridge of his nose.  “I’ll see what I can do.”

“All the best to your family, Raylan.”

“Good _bye,_ Boyd.”

The guards eye him as he leaves, no doubt imagining how he’d look in orange.  Raylan tips his hat to them with his best grin, and whistles his way out the doors.

 

*

 

To say that Raylan does not intend to visit Boyd a third time would be to imply that he gives it any thought at all, which is most assuredly not the case.  His return to his life in Miami casts the whole journey to Tramble into a dreamlike vagueness, the only evidence that he’d gone at all being the absence of Salinger’s classic from the top of his bookshelf.  Work in the Marshall Service catches him up again like he’d never been gone, and Boyd’s face quits haunting him before sleep.  The exorcism was a success.

He calls Ava.  In retrospect he supposes he’d thought she would appreciate the update on her ex-fiancé’s mental state, but he forgets to take into account that she’d had no cause to be concerned in the first place.  All she knew was that Boyd had been convinced she was dead after Raylan’s first visit, which she’d also been very much against and very much aggrieved that he’d gone without giving her a warning at the least.  She’s not exactly thrilled with the news of a second pointlessly risky visit, all because “something ain’t right”.

“Well what the hell does that mean, Raylan, ‘something ain’t right’?” Ava spits across the phone line.  Raylan can hear wind chimes tinkling somewhere in the background.  “Since when has anything ever been right with that man?  Hell, you see him acting halfway normal, that’s cause enough to run for the hills!”

Raylan stirs sugar into his coffee cup, nice and slow, watching the ripples.  It was probably no coincidence that he found himself making this call in the impulsive twilight of consciousness between being dead asleep and having that first cup of coffee.  “Would you believe you didn’t come up at all?”

“Do I believe he didn’t _mention_ me at all?  Well considering he thinks me _dead_ that don’t leave him much cause to bring me up, does it?  Do I believe he weren’t watching you like a hawk the whole time you was down there, looking to slip you up and catch you in a lie ‘fore you even notice he’s looking?  I’m not an idiot, Raylan!”

“Ain’t no one insulting your intelligence, Ava,” Raylan tries, and wonders once again just what in the hell happened up in that cabin the weekend Ava spooked so bad she cracked.  “I honestly think he believes you to be dead.  I don’t make a habit of lying to him, and Boyd, he knows that.  That ain’t what this is about.”

“Well then what is this about Raylan, because honestly, I’m having a hard time imagining why you’d call me to talk about Boyd Crowder if your intent weren’t to make me a nervous wreck!”      

Raylan takes a long sip of coffee before answering, and half-heartedly straightens the cheap nylon tablecloth that had come with the apartment and has not seen the inside of a washing machine since.  “This might be news to you, but Boyd ain’t exactly got a large circle of friends.  I had thought you to be one of the few remaining parties with an interest in his welfare, but if I was mistaken then I do apologize for disrupting your day.”

A gusty sigh translates to a burst of static over the line, and Ava’s voice when it returns is quiet and resigned.  “You think he’s suicidal?”

Raylan blinks.  He honestly hadn’t considered specifics, but there’s something horrifying about the thought, stark and immediate and far more real than his vague misgivings.  The coffee feels volatile on his empty stomach all of a sudden, and he hauls himself up to toast a slice of bread.  “I don’t know what I think.”

“Well, what do you plan on doing, from all the way out there in Florida?  ‘Cause I have to tell you Raylan, you and Boyd?  You ain’t never been good for each other.”

And, well, there’s really only one answer to that.  “We dug coal together, Ava.”  

Ava laughs bitterly.  “You say that like it’s some sorta answer to the meaning of life, you and Boyd both, but I ain’t never been able to buy a clue as to what you really mean.  Plenty of folk dug coal together without obsessing over it for decades.  But you know what, fine.  You want to be Boyd’s prison buddy, that’s your business.  I know better than to try and stop you.  But do me a favour and leave me out of it, all right?  All this stress is like to give me a heart attack, and I’ll have you know I’ve got you down as an emergency contact for this kid.”

Raylan huffs out a laugh, amused despite himself.  “How is Zachariah, these days?”

“You aware how big an impression you make, with that flashy red car and your damn hat?” 

“Probably as big an impression as you’d make on Willa, were she ever to meet you.  She’d be half in love with you in under a minute, guaranteed.”

There’s an embarrassed silence on the other end of the line, and Raylan can practically hear Ava blushing.  “Big city girl like her?  I doubt that,” she huffs.  “Zachariah though, he don’t exactly get out much.  He’s real easy to impress.  And it don’t help you actin’ the way you did, letting me blubber all over myself when you knew you weren’t gonna arrest me.  I’ve told him his daddy’s dead a hundred times if I’ve told him once, but that don’t stop him making up stories.  Not one day’s gone by he hasn’t been after me to know when his Uncle Raylan was gonna stop by.”  The bitterness has washed right out of her tone now, only a fond sort of annoyance remaining. 

“His Uncle Raylan?”

“Oh, stop your smirking, I can hear it from here.  All I said was you were a friend of mine and his daddy’s from a long time ago, and he decided that was enough to make you an uncle.  I ain’t responsible for the turns of that kid’s mind.”

“No you ain’t,” Raylan murmurs, a little lost in thought.  “Maybe it wouldn’t be such a terrible thing were I to stop by, meet him proper.  He should know the people looking out for him in this world.”

There’s a long silence that Raylan can’t parse.  Eventually Ava sighs.  “You’ll do what you want, Raylan, I’m sure.”  Something bangs in the background, and Raylan hears raised voices but can’t quite make out the words.  “I’ve gotta go,” Ava says.

“Ava, wait.”  Raylan takes a breath, focuses on conveying the truth of his next words.  “I ain’t gonna come out there without you telling me I can.  All right?”

“…All right.”  There are some more raised voices, and Ava muffles the phone for a second to yell something back.  When she returns she sounds harried.  “I really gotta go.  Bye, Raylan.”

The call disconnects.  Raylan shakes his head and butters his toast.

 

*

 

He still doesn’t give returning to Tramble much thought, but he supposes he’d taken the conversation with Ava for something like permission, because one day Winona brings a book with her to the park while waiting on him to pick up Willa for the afternoon. It’s a massive tome that she’s given up on even pretending to read by the time he arrives, some high-brow selection from her book club that she claims makes her cross-eyed just trying to track a sentence.  Raylan’s offering to take it off her hands before he’s even aware of the words about to come out of his mouth, and by that point he’s already in too deep to take it back.  Winona seems understandably confused, but is too clearly relieved at the chance to be rid of the thing to press him on it.

After that, it falls into something like a habit.  He never goes looking specifically for books for Boyd, but he starts to watch out for likely looking reading material in the regular course of his day, and once even steps into a used book store that had just opened up on the same corner as his apartment, just to look around.  He doesn’t always deliver the books in person, the trip to Kentucky is way too damn long for that, and he’s nothing like regular about it, but Boyd seems to view them as the highlight of his goddamn life all the same.

And if Raylan is honest with himself, just the knowledge that someone is still there to receive them steadies something deep in his soul.  He sends the books, visits occasionally when schedule and temperament permit it, and manages to sleep all right most nights.

When he does take the time to visit, their conversations are remarkably easy.  Clearly unwilling to risk anything that might drive Raylan away, Boyd latches onto the books immediately as something like safe common ground and always has a few points he’s eager to share about the latest donations.  Raylan’s fairly certain most of what he comes up with is more to get a rise out of Raylan than because the dipshit actually believes it, but that’s par for the course with Boyd.  Raylan has to admit the tactic does work more often than not, but his attempts to force Boyd to see sense are persistently hampered by the fact that he has not actually read the books in question, something which Boyd is only too happy to point out.  So if the titles start to tend toward westerns and take a little longer to make it from Raylan’s hands to Tramble Penitentiary, it’s only because Raylan’s getting tired of Boyd using the same old excuse to win arguments that no sensible person would be making in the first place.    

(When he finds himself deep in conversation with a very puzzled friend of Winona’s on the merits of authorial intent versus reader interpretation, he realizes things may have escalated a bit further than he’d intended.  But then he notices his daughter looking on with something like awe in her eyes, because she’s heard her daddy described as _strong_ and _brave_ and _too pretty for his own good_ but maybe never _smart_ , and decides it’s nothing that can’t wait to be addressed at a later date.)

They talk about other things sometimes too, him and Boyd, but those things are vastly outnumbered by what they don’t say.  Neither of them ever mentions Ava.  They don’t talk about Harlan, or anyone they knew from there.  Raylan asks after Boyd’s flock but not his circumstances otherwise, and Boyd never probes for details about Raylan’s job. 

They do talk about Willa.

Raylan’s reluctant at first, and so, so careful.  He never does tell Boyd her name, and he makes sure never to mention Winona’s husband by name either, or let slip any details that could potentially enable a determined person to find two specific women in the vast metropolis of Miami.  What he does share are small, personal details, like the way she’d been so fascinated with the first garter snake she’d found that she’d convinced Raylan to keep it at his apartment for an entire week so Winona wouldn’t make her get rid of it, or how she’d asked for a hat just like her daddy’s for her birthday.  These little unimportant details seem to satisfy Boyd, who soaks them up like precious drops of water in a desert, and eventually Raylan forgets that he’d started this on something like suicide watch for a convict and starts to enjoy just talking about his daughter with a friend.

Ava calls back not too long after their first conversation, full of misdirected anger and fear and poorly concealed concern for Boyd.  Raylan reassures her as best he can and in return she doesn’t give him too much shit for continuing to see Boyd, which Raylan takes to mean that deep down she’s glad Boyd’s got someone checking in on him.  They complain at each other about their kids for a while, Raylan threatens to drop by again and Ava threatens to nail him to the doorstep with her shotgun, and they hang up almost amicably.  It’s not even remotely the last time Ava calls.

They may have escaped Harlan, the three of them, but they haven’t yet escaped each other.  Raylan suspects they never will, but finds the thought of it don’t bother him so much anymore.  They’d torn each other up bad, trying to get free.  It’s only right they watch over the ragged pieces that are left.

 

*

 

If there’s one point on which Raylan has not budged, it’s his determination to keep his interactions with Boyd away from and thus largely unknown to the Marshal Service, as far as that’s possible, because the clusterfuck that surely would ensue if someone like Vasquez got wind of it is not something Raylan’s eager to deal with.  As such, he is in no way prepared for the call he gets one sunny Monday morning.

It’s early, he’s only had one cup of coffee, and he’s in the midst of an argument with Winona about getting Willa a dog for her birthday that has been running nearly a full week now and counting.  Winona refuses to have one in the house on account of Richard’s allergies, which Raylan refuses point blank to accept as a legitimate reason for why their daughter cannot have a puppy.  With his own tiny apartment not allowing pets, the only real alternative left is for Raylan to find a new, larger, and more pet-friendly place just to house _Willa’s_ dog, which seems as ridiculous to Raylan as his own dismissal of Richard’s allergies is to Winona.  They’re failing once again to reach anything like a compromise when his office phone rings.  Raylan is more than happy to use the excuse to hang up his cell, but in retrospect this turns out to be a poor bargain.

“Miami Marshal’s Office, Givens.”

“Hello, Raylan.”

Raylan’s stunned into silence as his mind struggles to switch gears without regressing six years in the process.  He doesn’t entirely succeed. 

“Boyd,” he returns, eventually.  It sounds flat and unfriendly even to his own ears.

“I am sorry to bother you at work,” Boyd says without sounding very sorry or at all put off by Raylan’s grouchiness, “but I got a favour to ask.”

Raylan feels Harlan flickering before his eyes, and does his best to deflect.  “Well I’m doing just fine, thanks for asking.  Always nice to hear from a concerned friend instead of the usual parade of scumbags trying to make last-minute deals.”

There’s a long, tense silence.  Raylan grits his teeth and waits it out.

“...I do apologize Raylan, that was rude of me,” Boyd concedes, and Raylan can hear something like sincerity in his voice now.  “It has been a day, is all, and these gentlemen are not the most patient.  But that is no excuse for treating my oldest friend badly.  Of course I am mightily concerned about your wellbeing and that of those you hold dear.”

The torrent of carefully chosen words leaves Raylan feeling exhausted.  That’s not good, this early in a conversation with Boyd.  He needs more damn coffee.  “What’s up, Boyd?”

“Well now, I wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression.  You wanted to talk, so let’s talk.  How is your lovely daughter doing, Raylan?” 

Raylan’s sure he’s not imagining the slight edge to Boyd’s voice now, and he’s regretting making such a big deal of it all.  He just wants Boyd to ask his damn favour so he can tell him no, hang up, get some more coffee and hopefully never set foot in Kentucky again.  “She’s fine, Boyd.  What’s the favour?  And, before you ask, I ain’t smuggling shit in for you.”

“And as a God-fearing man I would be obligated to submit any such ill-gotten gains to the proper authorities, I assure you,” Boyd counters, which Raylan is still pretty sure is a lie.  He supposes a lot would depend on the value of said ill-gotten gains.  “Even were you so inclined,” Boyd continues, “I fear any such attempts would be doomed, considering the amount of scrutiny your much appreciated books receive from the guards in this fine installation.  That last donation of yours in particular attracted quite a lot of attention by the vigilant officers here.  You wouldn’t by any chance know how there came to be a bloodstain on the back cover, would you Raylan?”

Raylan winces.  He hadn’t noticed that.  “There may have been an altercation with a fugitive in its vicinity.  I can assure you it came by any marks it may have sustained in a law-abiding fashion.  And you can pass that on.”

“I will surely do that,” Boyd promises, sounding amused.  “I hope the unfortunate incident did not interfere with your reading experience?”

“The man had been hiding out in that house for three god damn days, he could’ve waited five more minutes before breaking.  I was just getting to the good part.”

Boyd’s barking laugh echoes over the line, and Raylan wonders if the guards can tell who he’s talking to by that sound alone.  “I feel I should remark upon the questionable wisdom of your reading on the job, Raylan, but I find I am enjoying the image too much to complain.”

Raylan sighs.  “I wasn’t the only marshal watching the man, Boyd.  We took it in shifts.  Now would you just get to your damn point already?”  He tries to make that last come out sharp and demanding, but finds most of his irritation has melted away without him noticing.  Instead he just sounds tired.

“If you insist.”  Boyd pauses, again, and Raylan’s stomach sinks.  He’s not going to like this at all. 

“Boyd,” he prompts, though he’d just as soon hang up at this point, really.

“I hope you will believe me when I say this was not my idea,” Boyd says, which Raylan sees for the deflection it is, and his stomach sinks further.  “The last thing I wish is to saddle any more of my burdens upon you, my friend, but the lawyers have latched upon the notion and I’m sure you are well acquainted with how they can be.”

“ _Boyd_.”

“I apologize Raylan, I’m sure that you’re busy.  I’ll get to the point.  It seems that on account of my exemplary behaviour during my stay in this institution, I find myself eligible for a limited sort of parole.  I will be burdened with the normal restrictions on freedom and movement, of course, but my lawyer tells me I will also be in need of supervision.  Specially qualified supervision.  The requirements are stringent.”

Raylan groans.  He knows where this is going.  “Are you seriously asking to move in with me?”

“On a voluntary basis only, Raylan, please do not feel obliged because of your job or any other such matters.  The Marshal Service has nothing to do with this request, apart from their being qualified to perform such services, and will not be informed unless or until you see fit to share.”  Boyd sounds genuinely pained, and Raylan knows why: he doesn’t imagine any good outcomes from this conversation.  That he’s asking anyway probably says something not so great about his situation.

“And say you go rogue on my watch.  What happens to my unrelated job then?”

“I have been assured that I will be held fully accountable for my own actions.  They say they will blame you no more than they would blame my ankle bracelet, in the unfortunate circumstance that I were to outwit it.  Of course, you may decide for yourself how much of that is exaggeration.”

Raylan notes how Boyd makes no attempt to assure him of his good intentions, which he appreciates.  Whether he’d be telling the truth or not isn’t really relevant at this juncture, as the past has shown that Boyd’s intentions often have little to do with his eventual actions.  What Raylan thinks is really being tested here is his own willingness to follow through with the decision he made the day that he refused to shoot Boyd in Harlan, all those years ago.  Letting Boyd live also means continuing to live _with_ him, because they’ll never really be free of each other.  Raylan sees that now.  They’re drawn to each other like opposing magnets no matter how far they run and Raylan’s tired of fighting the pull. 

“You’re never gonna get out if I don’t do this, are you?” Raylan sighs.  “You’ll be stuck in Harlan until the day you die.”

“I ain’t been in Harlan for years, Raylan,” Boyd says, but his voice is dark and rough like the dust in a coal miner’s lungs.  Raylan hears the earth shaking, sees the dark and dust of the mine, and thinks of what would have happened if there hadn’t been a hand in his that day.

“We both know that’s a lie,” Raylan says, and tastes the dust on his tongue.  “You ain’t never left, even when you was blowing shit up in Kuwait.”  He leans back in his chair and cracks the window open, letting the sea breeze waft in.  He breathes deep of saltwater tang and city grunge; listens to the sounds of traffic and the occasional string of Mexican music; watches a gull settle in a palm tree. 

He got out.  Ava got out.  Maybe Boyd can too.  And being that Raylan is once again the only friend Boyd’s got left in this world, it seems it’s up to him to offer the man a hand and haul him on out into the light.

“Well.”  Raylan pauses, thinking there must be more to say.  And there is.  There are plenty of ground rules and conditions to work out and a god damn mountain of things Boyd will need to do if he ever hopes to be in the same _building_ as Willa, but Raylan finds there’s really only one question on his mind that he feels like asking.  “How you feel about dogs?”

There’s a beat of silence on the line, and then laughter rings out so bright and honest that it warms Raylan down to his bones.  He’s feeling alert and edgy now even without the coffee, thinking of all the things that could go wrong, thinking of the legendary explosion sure to ensue when he tells Ava of this most recent development, thinking of what to tell his coworkers or Winona even, none of whom will understand.  But there’s iron in his spine and his soul feels settled and he thinks, if this works, it might just be worth everything that came before.

“Raylan,” Boyd says, and Raylan’s already smiling at the glee in his voice, “I _love_ dogs.”

 

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> For such a simple idea, this turned out to be ridiculously hard to write and I'm still not sure why. Any and all feedback is appreciated, even if it's just to tell me I butchered everything the way I half-suspect I did. ;P
> 
> I'm about 98% sure the type of parole I gave Boyd is not actually a thing you can get (or even if Boyd would be eligible for anything at all since, you know, multiple murders), but Tramble Penitentiary is not actually a place and that's canon, so. Artistic license, yay!


End file.
